


climbed up on the rainbow just to see if i’d fall off

by maybesandsomedays



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: 12 bottles of Christmas!, Drinking, F/F, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, and Stevie dealing with being a giant lesbian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-15 00:03:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21024437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybesandsomedays/pseuds/maybesandsomedays
Summary: Stevie had a reason that she began drinking Twelve Bottles of Wine at Christmastime. It has absolutely nothing to do with a girl.The origins of the Twelve Bottles of Wine, and how she shares it.





	climbed up on the rainbow just to see if i’d fall off

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [SCFrozenOver](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/SCFrozenOver) collection. 

> Written for Schitt’s Creek Frozen Over - prompt: “The origin of the Twelve Bottles of Wine tradition. Or maybe five Christmases when Stevie celebrated with twelve bottles of wine and one Christmas where she had a better distraction? Extra bonus points for any and all gay Stevie!”
> 
> Special thanks to Emma, who gave me SO many ideas for this and betaed the whole way through. I couldn't have done it alone.
> 
> Title is from “This is Everything” by Tegan and Sara, because I’ve said this before but Stevie IS a Tegan and Sara fan. Also, there's a song playing in one scene of this, and it felt awkward to mention directly in the fic but it's “When My Heart Finds Christmas” by Harry Connick, Jr.

When Stevie is a teenager, Amber applies for a job at the motel in the early spring.

Maureen lets Stevie join her in the interview, because she says she’s the one who’ll be working with her anyway. Also, Maureen is drunk at the time. She’s even shared her alcohol so that Stevie is also buzzed, which Stevie is grateful for.

Something about Amber deeply unsettles Stevie. Her stomach gets funny when she looks at her, when Amber speaks, when she flips her long hair over her shoulder, and when she shook her hand at the end of the interview Stevie’s stomach didn’t settle and her hand didn’t stop tingling for hours.

She begs Maureen and her wife, Clara, not to hire Amber, but Maureen simply takes a puff of a cigarette and cryptically responds, “I saw how you looked at her, Stevie. She’s hired,” and takes a drink of whiskey. Stevie wants to scream.

Months later, the strange way Stevie feels around Amber hasn’t gone away as winter sets in, but instead seems to be getting more intense the more time they spend together.

And today, with only a short time to go before Christmas, Amber’s eyes widen at what Stevie has just told her. “You’re working on Christmas?”

Stevie shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable, suddenly feeling like Amber’s opinion is the most important thing in the world. “Someone has to.”

“Well, considering people start getting ready for Christmas before we’ve even hit Halloween—the obviously superior holiday,” she adds, and Amber giggles, and somehow Stevie feels proud of herself. “By the time it actually rolls around, I’ve had enough. Especially tacky Christmas songs like fucking _Jingle Bells_,” she continues awkwardly; it’s not that she actually cares about this, but it’s her standard response because it gets people to roll their eyes, shut up, and leave her alone. Now it doesn’t feel like enough.

“I just don’t like Christmas,” she confesses, blurting out the truth under Amber’s stare. “I’ve never had a good one. So I might as well work.”

“Okay, then we’re gonna do Christmas for you tonight,” Amber decides. “I’m gonna teach you how fun it can be, Stevie.”

Stevie’s stomach is tangled up in knots that are also lurching around like a football.

“Good luck,” she says.

-

-

Amber leaves the motel earlier than Stevie that day, promising to return and give Stevie the Christmas of her dreams, the Christmas that would make her change her mind about Christmases.

Stevie waits with some combination of anticipation and dread, having no idea what to expect. She had long ago learned that Christmases were better spent alone; she had no family she wanted to spend it with. She wanted to be away from her father as much as possible, and she had no friends she actually wanted to spend time with. Maureen and Clara would let her be with them and at least they’d have alcohol, and they were the only people Stevie really liked, but they also liked to be alone sometimes.

Solitude was better on Christmas, and it was better the rest of the year, too. Stevie would say she was a lone wolf, if asked. Solitude was what she knew. But the prospect of actually _being_ with someone—on a holiday meant for spending time together—is kind of thrilling, in a way.

As promised, Amber arrives back at the motel toting several bags, and says she’ll get ready and meet her in empty room ten while Stevie closes up the front office. Stevie’s heart kind of does a somersault and she doesn’t understand why.

“Merry Christmas, Stevie Budd!” Amber exclaims when Stevie enters the room, and flings her arms around her. Stevie’s brain stops working when it happens; the breath feels knocked out of her lungs at Amber’s close proximity.

It gets knocked out all over again when she takes in what Amber is wearing: a short red dress with white trim, a matching hat, and black thigh-high stockings. A “sexy Santa” outfit. She’s looping a long line of tinsel around Stevie’s neck like a scarf and pulling her forward.

“Do I have to dress up too?” Stevie asks dumbly, and Amber laughs.

“Not unless you want to. I’d love to see that.”

Stevie doesn’t say that she could almost be convinced to dress up in a funny elf costume if it made Amber happy. Instead, she smirks, and says, “You can dress my corpse in a costume.”

“You’ll see. By the end of tonight, I’ll have you so convinced Christmas is fun you’ll be dressed up as a reindeer.” Amber bends down and picks up a bottle. “Now, I’m sure you’re ready for some vodka?”

Stevie grins. “You know it.”

Amber starts humming a tune quietly as she gathers two cups and pours a mixture of vodka and lemonade that’s mostly vodka.

“What is that?” Stevie asks, sipping at the drink. “That song.”

“Here, I’ll play it for you.” She turns away again and inserts a CD she pulls from her bag into the player. When the first notes start, Amber holds out her hand to Stevie. “Dance with me.”

“Don’t worry,” she adds, smiling coyly, “this isn’t fucking _Jingle Bells_.”

Stevie snorts and obliges.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, once Amber’s hands are on her and they’re swaying to the music, when she’s staring into Amber’s eyes and what she wants to say is _you’re beautiful_ but maybe she hasn’t had enough alcohol yet to voice that thought when she doesn’t even know where it came from.

Before she even knows it, the song is over, and Amber is singing the last lines to her, and Stevie feels like her soul is being stared into.

Stevie hated Christmas.

But, she thinks—as a girl who loves Christmas places a Santa hat on Stevie’s head and laughs in a way that makes Stevie’s fragile heart swell and burst—maybe it has its merits.

-

-

At one point of the night, when they’re both good and drunk, Amber situates herself directly onto Stevie’s lap. Stevie’s mouth goes dry instantly, staring at Amber, still in that Santa outfit, now this close and on top of her. She takes a sip of her glass of wine to counteract it.

“So now that you like Christmas,” Amber starts, and Stevie snorts but allows it. She’s drunk now. Amber stops. “What was I saying?”

“Christmas,” Stevie supplies.

“Christmas! In my family we do things and I’m gonna show you. We make gingerbread houses and we all get ornaments…” She trails off.

“Why?” Stevie asks.

“Tradition, you know?” Amber shrugs.

Stevie laughs, but it’s not a laugh with any joy; it’s maniacal, a cackle. Unhinged. “Traditions!” She giggles darkly, bent over, her hair hanging over her face. “I got my own tradition,” she continues, and she grabs a bottle of wine by the neck. She shakes her head fast, wildly. “Twelve glasses of wine! One for all the times my dad has disappointed me.”

She pops open the cork and chugs some wine right out of the bottle. “It’s like the twelve days of Christmas, but sadder.” Her voice gets quieter; she’s trying very hard to keep the same unaffected, wild tone she had adopted before, but she softens at the end, and she hates that it reveals that it affects her more than she wants anyone to know.

Amber takes the bottle from Stevie’s grasp and with her other hand, she turns Stevie’s face toward her, staring at the hot tears that are pricking beneath Stevie’s eyes but stubbornly not being allowed to fall.

“We can make new traditions, Stevie,” Amber says.

And then she leans in and kisses her. And suddenly it’s like every strange feeling Stevie ever had about Amber makes sense. The kiss cuts though even the haze of huge amounts of alcohol, and it’s like the combination makes everything clearer.

-

-

After that night, Amber leaves for a week, for the Christmas with her family that she had requested off a month ago.

Stevie’s been _itching_ to see Amber again. After the kiss where Stevie’s whole world clicked into place, she’s actually been more confused than ever once the soberness set in again. Something tells her that if she can just see Amber again, talk to her again, she’ll figure it out.

Everything in the week only makes her think of Amber. Changing the sheets in the motel took twice as long as it usually did. Everything in the motel reminds her of Amber: the front desk where they were usually together, the chairs just like the one where Amber had sat in her lap, how close Amber’s body was to hers while they danced, and then that kiss—the kiss they had shared—

Stevie can still feel the press of lips on hers. Maybe if she kisses her again, she’ll figure it out.

She can’t even enter room ten again without blushing.

_I’m gonna tell her_ is the thought that keeps pulsing through Stevie’s head, although she’s not exactly sure what she’s going to tell her. She only knows that Amber makes her feel some kind of way, even if she hasn’t exactly identified the feeling. It’s probably what having a friend is like, she reasons. She wants to kiss her friend a lot more, and that’s something people do, right?

Stevie’s not gay. She’s sure of that. She only likes kissing one girl, and other than that, obviously she’s completely straight.

-

-

Stevie arrives at work early on the day Amber is due to be back, nearly buzzing out of her skin with excitement. She thinks she might go for it, and tell Amber that she wants their friendship to be the kind where they kiss. She might even greet her with it.

“Stevie!” Amber squeals, bursting through the motel office door and rushing towards her, and Stevie can’t help but grin at her. Seeing Amber again calms all of the jitters she’d had, but also awakens her with the thrill of reunion and of anticipation of what she’s planning. Amber grabs her in a hug, and Stevie bemoans her chance to have started with a kiss, but she relishes the closeness.

“How was your trip?” Stevie asks, trying to swallow down the anxious lump in her throat.

Amber grips Stevie’s shoulders in her hands. “Oh, you’ll never believe it!” Her eyes light up, and Stevie waits in anticipation. “I met someone.”

Stevie’s brow furrows and her nose wrinkles. “What kind of person could you have met in _Elmdale?_”

“No, no, I met a _boy!_”

Stevie stares at her blankly. She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t want to get it.

“His name’s Josh Jamison, he’s in Elmdale but he says he comes to Schitt’s Creek all the time. He’s in our grade, do you know him?”

She does. She’s met him at parties before, and she always noticed him talking to pretty girls, and something in her gut always twisted when she saw it. She can only nod to Amber now, who is still talking about him.

“He kissed me! I’m seeing him again next weekend.”

“Congratulations,” Stevie finally is able to choke out, plastering on a fake smile and a brave face, trying to not outwardly look like she’s going to throw up.

-

-

She shoves everything aside. She hangs out with Amber and with Josh. She’s a third wheel.

She tells herself she feels the way she does when she looks at them because she has a crush on Josh. That’s the only reason she always feels like them being together is them personally punching her in the stomach.

Amber moves away for college and never comes back. Stevie only goes to college in Elmdale, and ends up right back in Schitt’s Creek.

Next Christmas, she drinks twelve glasses of wine all by herself.

And as the Christmases go on, twelve glasses isn’t enough to sustain the emptiness inside her, and pretty soon Stevie’s new tradition becomes twelve bottles.

* * *

“You’re sure you’re not doing anything with your family?”

“Ever since we got to this godforsaken place, we haven’t. We used to have elaborate Christmas parties every year, and now we’re not exactly in a celebratory mood, so believe me, I am more than willing to spend it with you and also avoid them.”

“Okay, yeah, so, I call it the Twelve Bottles of Christmas,” Stevie explains as they stare at a display of wines in the Elmdale liquor store. “I know you’re Jewish, but it’s just a name, not really about the holiday. It’s more about drinking wine.”

“Twelve whole bottles!” David’s eyes sparkle as he grips a bottle of rosé by the neck and dances with it. “That’s quite a lot, what brought on this little tradition?”

“Actually, with the two of us, it’s twenty-four,” Stevie points out.

“I’m very interested in this, I hope you plan on a nice variety.”

Stevie shrugs. “Three each of white, red, and rosé? I like to mix it up.”

“Done. I’m picking them out for both of us, you have a tendency to buy cheap wine and that’s unacceptable. So much to my mother’s chagrin, there will be no fruit wines.”

“I thought she hated those.”

“Oh, she does. That doesn’t stop her from drinking them.”

Stevie puts her lips together and nods. “I get that.”

-

-

“Stevie, you might be a genius,” David, one bottle of wine into the holiday, declares.

“I know,” Stevie replies. Then, “Why this time?”

“Twelve bottles of wine!” David holds up eight fingers, and Stevie raises her eyebrow at the wrong number but David has already had too much wine to realize why.

“You know, it used to only be twelve glasses,” she confesses. “Making it bottles was just a particularly brilliant idea.”

David pours each of them another glass. “Not that I mind that, of course. You know, you never said the idea behind all of this.”

Stevie takes a long drink. “When it started, it was my dad,” is all she can say right now. She’s not drunk enough for this. Amber looms in her mind and she can’t tell David about her. Only blaming her father is safer. “He’s an ass, and I kept adding bottles when he was an ass.”

David is silent for a moment. He drinks. “Sorry,” he says.

Stevie shrugs, takes another swig of wine. “S’okay. I’m used to it. He’s gone now.”

“Dead?”

She snorts. “I wish. He’s still alive and kickin’, and that’s another bottle all in itself. He just moved away.”

“Well, here’s to him never coming back,” David says, reaching out his glass for a toast.

It isn’t until later that she’s able to say what’s really bothering her. Not until she’s a few more bottles down.

“I think I loved her,” Stevie confesses, and it’s the first time she’s said it out loud. It’s the first time she’s even told anyone about her. But she knows David will get it. He’s watching her, now.

“Who…”

“Amber.” It’s the first time Stevie has said her name out loud since she left. So many years without that name escaping her lips.

David doesn’t ask who Amber is. He doesn’t need to.

“My dad didn’t approve, but my great-aunt and her wife did,” she says. “He didn’t approve of them either, though. That’s…those are the real reasons for the bottles. Back then, I mean. When it started.”

“I’m not,” she chokes out suddenly, shaking her head back and forth. “I’m not. I’m not—I’m not _like him_.”

“I know you’re not,” David says softly.

“No, David, I’m not! I’m not _like him_!” She’s maybe hysterical now. Her throat feels raw, like the emotion coming out had burned her on the way up.

She wants to communicate _more_ to David than just that she’s not homophobic. More than that she’s unlike her father, more than what he said. Something more wants to burst forth out of her but she has no idea what it is and the pressure of it is building up in her chest. She just wants David to understand what it is without her having to figure it out and say it herself.

She’s broken from her reverie by David clasping her wrists. “Hey. You’re nothing like him. He’s an asshole, and you’re more like a lovable asshole,” he jokes, and a puff of laughter escapes from Stevie.

“Thanks, David.”

“Well, I’m great at this,” he says, rolling his eyes and waving his hand. Stevie sob-laughs again. “I seriously don’t want you thinking you’re anything like that scummy shitbag, alright? We’re not our parents. Look, I’m nothing like my mother.”

Stevie bites her lip, smiling now. “You’re a little bit like your mother.”

David gasps dramatically. “Oh, so you _are_ an asshole.”

“No, you’re right, there’s nothing similar about two people who dress in elaborate outfits and live for drama. Who would ever know you’re mother and son?”

David rolls his eyes. “More wine?”

Stevie lets him deflect, and holds her glass out, and feels a little bit lighter.

They fall asleep there on the floor of an empty motel room, and don’t think about the fact that they had only drunk eight bottles between them, certainly not twenty-four. When they wake up, many of the memories of the night before are gone, and Stevie doesn’t remember why it feels like a weight has been lifted off of her shoulders but also like another yoke was strapped on.

* * *

“Thank you all for joining us for Christmas this year!” Johnny announces loudly, beaming. A small crowd has gathered in the Roses’ house in Schitt’s Creek, around a tree that Ted had volunteered to pick out for him. “And congratulations to the cast and crew who were in the Christmas production of Rent!” He waves his arm at where Moira, Stevie, Patrick, Jocelyn, Alexis, Twyla, and Stevie’s wife Mack all vaguely are, and the room claps.

“I know it’s not like what we used to do, but I like to think it’s still nice,” Johnny continues.

“Of course, it’s simply resplendent, dear,” Moira hums.

“It’s family now,” Johnny explains.

“I know, dear.”

“Is it really family, though, because Ray is over there and I’m not sure anyone actually like, invited him,” Alexis says once people have dispersed.

“Does anyone invite him anywhere?” David agrees.

“Be nice, children. It’s Christmas!” Moira admonishes.

“No, they’re right, he’s always had a weird knack for showing up everywhere,” Stevie supplies. “When I was in high school I went to a party some kid was throwing and he was somehow there.”

“Maybe he just assumes he invited since he indirectly introduced David and Patrick,” Mack teases. “Honorary part of the family.”

The look of absolute horror and disgust on David’s face makes Mack and Stevie both break out in giggles together.

The Rose family had long since grown used to these more intimate gatherings than the ones they had previously been used to. Even Moira no longer pined for their old lavish parties. Each year in Schitt’s Creek, the family holidays had grown bigger and bigger, and now it was more common than not for someone new to show up. After David and Patrick’s wedding, invitations had been extended to the Brewers, who were now regulars. The Mullens relatives had first come when Ted and Alexis were in the Galapagos and both families wanted to spend time together, and had never left.

Now, it was the first year Stevie was married to her long-time girlfriend Mack, and since she was undoubtedly an unofficial member of the Rose family, her wife’s parents had joined the party.

“Where can I hang up mistletoe?” Twyla asks David out of nowhere.

David stares at the offending twig that Twyla is holding up pinched between her thumb and forefinger. “Why the fuck would you hang a plant in the house?”

“For kissing!” Twyla beams.

“Yeah, for kissing, David,” Patrick teases. “You might have heard of it?” David whips his head to look at him, aghast.

“I’m sorry, are you in favor of this?”

Patrick shrugs. “Could be fun.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“Aw, do you not want to kiss me, David?” Patrick pretends to look hurt.

“You know that’s not the case, I just have a fear this could lead places we don’t want to go.”

“Like what?” Patrick asks, laughing. “Why don’t you put it over that doorway there, Twyla?”

“Yay! It’s from my grandma’s farm in the woods, and I think I should warn you that it might be cursed. Or maybe it’s blessed? I’m not sure, but it’s definitely got some sort of energy.” Twyla shrugs, then happily bounces off to hang the sprig, and David immediately goes to get a drink.

“You know this won’t end well,” Stevie says from behind Patrick’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I do, but it’s so fun to get him riled up like that.”

“And I support that. You also know I’m going to take full advantage of kissing my new wife under it.”

“As you should. Where is she?”

Stevie peers around the room. “Talking to Alexis.”

“You should probably go rescue her.”

“And your husband’s head just might explode.”

On her way across the room, Moira appears to be mid-anecdote about _Sunrise Bay_, which Marcy is listening to, captivated, as they both sip cocktails. Ted, his stepdad, and Clint are having a lively conversation, while Johnny appears to be baffled by what they’re saying while trying to appear not to be. Stevie snorts to herself.

She finally finds Alexis in the midst of trying to talk Mack into letting her give her a makeover. “You can surprise Stevie,” Alexis urges. “I can even do like, little rainbow eyeshadow, and it’ll be super cute.”

“Makeup on my wedding day was enough,” Mack insists good-naturedly.

“Okay, but like, what about clothes, though?”

“There’s nothing wrong with her clothes, Alexis,” Stevie says as she comes up, affectionately rolling her eyes.

“Okay, I didn’t say there was, though, I just thought a change could be, you know, fun.”

“I’ll stick with this,” Mack says, and Alexis wanders off saying she’s going to find Ted.

“I’m trying to picture you dressed like Alexis,” Stevie teases, biting her lip to keep from laughing.

Mack laughs. “Like you don’t want to see me in short shorts.”

“Maybe if you wear one of my flannels with it.”

“I think that can be arranged.”

“Oh! Girls!” Marcy interrupts them. “I have something for you. For your first Christmas together!” She holds out a small gift bag, which Stevie takes and holds at an angle so that it’s close to Mack as well. She pulls out a small ornament of two brides holding a sign that says OUR FIRST CHRISTMAS.

“It matches the one I got for David and Patrick,” Marcy explains, even though Stevie recognized the style right away. A few tears prick at her eyes, and Mack’s arm is around her waist.

“Thank you,” Stevie says sincerely, running her thumb over the ornament. “And, oh, that reminds me. I’ll be right back.”

She disappears up the stairs, and comes back with several bags, and gets people’s attention.

“So I used to do a thing called the Twelve Bottles of Christmas,” Stevie starts. “Like the twelve days, but bottles of wine.”

“I’m unclear on why we stopped doing that, actually,” David says.

Stevie takes a deep breath. “I drank them all because I was miserable. And now, um, I’m not, so I wanted to give them to the people who made that happen.”

She hands out the bags, each containing one of the bottles of wine. One for Mack; one for David and for Patrick. One each for Alexis and Ted. One each for Johnny and Moira, and ones for Clint and Marcy, and Mack’s parents.

“Aw, Stevie! What’s this for?” Clint asks, at the same time that Moira is already pouring hers.

Stevie shrugs. “I thought I’d share this year. I don’t need them all.”


End file.
